N864 Wallasey-Dean Cross

[Mister Geezer]

I was wondering if someone at Manchester and someone from Scottish could help me out here.

During the weekend we have asked on a couple of occasions to route WAL-DCS in the airway instead or going NITON - NOKIN - RIBEL to Talla. Our request normally gets turned down and I was wondering if anyone might know why. It seems that Scottish are not too keen whenever Manch coordinate and I am guessing that it might conflict with DCS south bound traffic or PF inbounds from the south??? If we filed this, would we be more susceptible to flow problems and CTOTs? I fly a turboprop so we are normally chugging away at anything from the mid teens to the low twenties. Mid twenties if the winds are really worth it and we are not too heavy.

If there is normally a slim chance then I won't clog up the R/T with the request and will bear it in mind for my colleagues.

During the week when the DCS-WAL portion or the airway is not operational, is it controllers discretion, workload permitting, whether a RIS is offered in the open FIR between WAL and DCS??? Think this applies to those at Manch on the IOM sector.

Thanks for your help.

[BALIX]

Geezer

A reasonable question. From a Scottish perspective, the reason we usually turn down these requests is that you enter the wrong sector. From the south, all TMA inbound aircraft fly up the eastern side of the airway and speak to the Talla sector, with outbounds speaking to Galloway on the west. Were you to fly direct to DCS you would be entering the Galloway sector straight into the teeth of the outbounds. At busy times this would be somewhat of a pain to say the least as not only will the Galloway controller have to deal with the flight, he will have to coordinate something with the Talla controller as the flight is not now operating in accordance with any of the standing agreements between the two sectors.

At quiet times it might not be so much of a problem, though Manchester might well have their own issues with this particular request.

As for filing the route, I expect the plan would be rejected as an invalid routing but others may well correct me on that.

[Mister Geezer]

Thanks for the reply - points all noted!